'No improvement' in weekend hospital discharges

The changeover to public-only consultants has made no improvement in relation to the number of patients being discharged from hospital at weekends, according to a member of the Regional Health Forum West and North West.

Speaking at last week's meeting of the forum, Galway-based Cllr Shane Forde asked how many new public-only consultants are working weekends and whether the move had improved the discharge rate of patients.

A joint written reply from the HSE stated: “The Public-Only Consultant Contract (POCC) was initiated for new consultant entrants to the public workforce in 2023. Since then, there has been significant uptake across all the health regions.

“The West and North West region currently has 577 POCC holders within the regional workforce which includes those new entrants and consultant staff who have transitioned to the public-only consultant contract from older contracts since 2023.

“All POCC holders fulfil their on-call commitments where applicable across the seven days of the week. There are 199 consultants engaging in scheduled work on Saturdays. The region is currently exploring ways in which access to care can be enhanced on Saturdays through increasing consultant-led scheduled sessions.

“Weekend discharge rates have increased slightly from 14.5% to 14.8% in the last 12 months and remains an area of focus for the entire multidisciplinary team.” 

Cllr Forde said the figures showed “there has been no improvement", adding: "Discharge rates have only increased by a point of a percentage. We are not discharging enough at weekends, consequently, there are no beds on Mondays and that is the issue. We need to focus on this."

Ann Cosgrove, Integrated Health Area Manager for Roscommon and Galway, told Cllr Forde: “We are challenged regarding capacity of service and are working hard to increase discharges to 20% at weekends but we have a bit to go.”

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.